Sunday, December 15, 2013

• The British Medical Journalanalyzes “James Bond’s consumption of alcohol as detailed in the series of novels by Ian Fleming,” and concludes that his “weekly alcohol intake is over four times the advisable maximum alcohol consumption for an adult male. He is at considerable risk of developing alcoholic liver disease, cirrhosis, impotence, and other alcohol-related health problems, together with being at serious risk of injury or death because of his drinking. Although we appreciate the societal pressures to consume alcohol when working with international terrorists and high-stakes gamblers,” the BMJ says, “we would advise Bond be referred for further assessment of his alcohol intake and reduce his intake to safe levels.” UPDATE:Slate’s take on Bond’s alcoholism is here.

• The UK blog Crime Fiction Lover recently invited its regular contributors to submit lists of their five favorite crime novels published in 2013. Four such rundowns have already been posted, and can be found here, with more entries still to come. I’m pleased by the diversity of choices, everything from Mari Hannah’s Deadly Deceit and Bill Pronzini’s Kinsmen to Death in St James’ Park, by
Susanna Gregory, and Love Story with Murders, by Harry Bingham.

• Bonnie
& Clyde, the new two-part, four-hour teleflick dramatizing the lives of Depression-era outlaws Clyde Barrow (played here by Emile Hirsch) and Bonnie Parker (Holliday Grainger), was just broadcast in the States last week. But already it is being prepared for a DVD release on January 28. I found the film to be visually compelling, and though the plot diverged from the facts now and then (which is typical with the legend of Bonnie and Clyde), its distinctive
interpretation of the circumstances surrounding those fugitives’ brutal deaths left me with a haunted feeling and caused me to go back and watch the final scene several more times.

• There are so many Christmas-themed mysteries, blogger Janet Rudolph (a splendidly
Christmas-y surname, don’t you think?) has had to break her compilation of them into several parts. Click
here to see titles beginning with the letters A to D; here
for E-H; and here for I-N. She should be rolling out the rest of the alphabet soon.

• Dagnabit! The excellent historical crime seriesRipper Street, set in London’s poor Whitechapel district in the wake of Jack the Ripper’s 1889 killing spree, will not be given a third season. It concludes its second-season run tomorrow in Great Britain, and the eight episodes of its sophomore year are supposed to air in the States sometime in 2014 on BBC America. However, the show--which stars Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn,
and Adam Rothenberg--was not deemed successful enough to continue, much to the consternation of many critics and viewers. There are already negotiations underway that could
result in a third season of Ripper Street being produced, and I hope they bear fruit; but there are no guarantees.

• Criminal Element reports: In not-surprising-in-the-least news, Tom Cruise is set to return as Lee Child’s silent but intimidating hero, Jack Reacher, in a sequel to 2012’s Jack Reacher. This new film is reported to be based upon the newest Reacher
thriller, Never Go Back. Irony, of course, being something completely alien to Hollywood execs.”

• This is considerably better news, from Mystery Fanfare: “UK producers Tracey Scoffield and Frank Doelger are partnering with Germany’s Beta to produce a big-screen version of Derek B. Miller’s Norwegian by Night,” a quirky and endearing tale that I chose as one of my favorite crime novels of the year.

• The celebrated British TV drama Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin
Freeman, will begin its third-season, three-episode run on the BBC on Wednesday, January 1, 2014. It will commence showing in the United States on Sunday, January 19, under PBS-TV’s Masterpiece umbrella. Watch the preview here.

• As somebody who often contributed over the decades to the Pacific Northwest’s Best Places guidebook series, I am sorry to discover that it has “quietly faded away” after 34 years.

• I’ve read all but one of the books Scottish author Ian Rankin describes as the “five perfect mysteries.” Really, Ian--Muriel Sparks’ The Driver’s Seat? I have to track that down.

1 comment:

The BMJ's Bond article was delightful; thanks for that! Although it must be noted that, in THUNDERBALL, Bond is forced off the alcohol and cigarettes by M as part of a new health regime. It's a very funny satire of the health farm craze of the times, and the funniest thing is that it works wonders for Bond... until the world gets taken hostage, when he and M both decide there are more important things to worry about than the nasty effects of cigarette smoke.

Just the Facts

All Points Bulletin

Send Us News:
The Rap Sheet is always on the lookout for information about new and soon-forthcoming books, special author projects, and distinctive crime-fiction-related Web sites. Shoot us an e-mail note here.

The Rap Sheet Network

Subscribe to The Rap Sheet

If You Can, Please Help The Rap Sheet to Survive and Thrive

Winter Reading Picks

Check out our picks of almost 400 crime and thriller novels due out on both sides of the Atlantic between now and April Fool’s Day. Click here.

Your Vigilance Is Welcome

Those of us responsible for The Rap Sheet try to get everything right, and we work to keep our Web links up to date. But we’re not perfect. So, if you spot any errors (typographical or otherwise) in this blog, or discover links or embedded videos that aren’t functioning properly, please let us know via e-mail.

The Rap Sheet Faithful

Disclosure Notice

The Rap Sheet accepts books sent free of charge from publishers, publicists, and authors. Those works may inspire comments on this page. However, in no case is there any promise given that a book will be the subject of an endorsement or review, either positive or negative.

Videos Disclaimer

From time to time, The Rap Sheet features short video clips. Use of these is for historical and entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to establish ownership of such materials. Rights to those clips stay with their owners/creators.

The One Book Project

In honor of The Rap Sheet’s first birthday, we invited more than 100 crime writers, book critics, and bloggers from all over the English-speaking world to choose the one crime/mystery/thriller novel that they thought had been “most unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or underappreciated over the years.” Their choices can be found here.

The Wayback Machine

Before The Rap Sheet was a blog, it was a monthly newsletter in January Magazine. To find all the old editions of that newsletter, just click here.

Buy Books Online

QUOTABLE CRIME

“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.” — American crime novelist Raymond Chandler